Sep 12, 2008

Design Students Tackle Hydrogen Future

From as close as Detroit to as far away as China, 21 students from around the world were chosen to design and engineer a hydrogen-powered car for the year 2020, as a part of the annual design internship program at General Motors. Each team of interns consisted of a designer, an engineer, a sculptor and a trim-and-color artist. Together, they came up with six futuristic concept cars. In addition to being gasoline-free, the concept cars also had to meet the needs of international drivers in the emerging markets of China, India and Russia as well as more developed nations.

While these concept cars won’t be available in showrooms anytime soon, the exercise was designed to provide the interns with “real world” experience of working in a multinational corporation. Hydrogen-powered vehicles offer both unique design challenges and some interesting opportunities for innovation. Their actual electric propulsion units are small, but the fuel cells themselves and the hydrogen tanks to fuel them can be large.